Today, the field of gastronomy is unimaginable without ice pieces made of water for cooling foods and beverages. Because of the quantities needed, devices for making ice pieces have always been used. However, making ice pieces is becoming increasingly important and interesting for private users as well. For this reason, devices for making ice pieces are already known, either as separate devices or integrated into freezers or refrigerators.
The basic design of such a device for making ice pieces is always similar. More particularly, there is always at least one ice piece producing unit and a collection container in which the ice pieces produced are received and from which they can be removed by the user. What differs is the way in which the ice pieces are produced in the ice piece producing unit and the manner in which the fill level in the collection container is monitored.
It is known, for example, to monitor the fill level in the collection container using sensor means, such as mechanical, electronic, electromechanical, or optical sensors. The prior art, however, has the disadvantage and inconvenience that only two conditions are detectable, namely, when the collection container is full and when it is empty and needs to be refilled. However, depending on the user's habits, it may not always be required or desired for the collection container to be completely filled. Moreover, it has been found that the ice pieces become connected and adhere to each other when no ice pieces are removed from the collection container over a prolonged period of time. In that case, the ice pieces are “expired”. In addition, they shrink and change their shape because they lose moisture as a result of the cooling process. Furthermore, prolonged storage involves the risk of deterioration in the overall quality of the ice pieces. Another negative aspect of such devices for making ice pieces is that the energy consumption increases disproportionately with the number of excessive ice pieces.
German Patent Publication DE 40 20 128 C2, for example, describes a device for making ice pieces where the ice pieces are formed on cooling fingers which are in communication with a compression cooling unit. The cooling fingers are immersed in a water tray and subsequently cooled to the freezing temperature so that the surrounding water freezes on the cooling fingers. The ice pieces so produced can subsequently be released into a collection container by briefly heating the cooling fingers. In this design, the water tray is pivotable about an axis so that the water remaining therein after making the ice pieces can be poured out. Moreover, a feeler arm is provided as a detection device on the outer edge of the water tray to monitor the fill level of the collection container. When pouring out the residual water, the water tray is pivoted so that the path of movement of the feeler arm is blocked when a predetermined fill level is reached. As a result, an electric controller interrupts the production of ice. As explained earlier herein, this approach has the disadvantage that the fill level of the collection container must always be at the same height, and that ice pieces are produced until the maximum fill level of the collection container is reached.
A similar device for making ice pieces is described in DE 10 2005 057 139 A1. Here, the ice pieces are produced by introducing water into a suitable ice tray which is pivotable about an axis. Once the water is frozen, the ice tray is pivoted about its axis, and the ice pieces are mechanically removed from the ice tray by a finger during the rotational movement. In order to monitor the fill level of the container and to control the ice cube supply as a function of the detected fill level, a detection device in the form of a light barrier is used which defines the upper fill level of the collection container. When the light beam of the light barrier is interrupted, the production of the ice pieces is stopped by a suitable control circuit. As long as the light barrier is not interrupted, the production of ice pieces continues, which involves the above-mentioned disadvantages. Here, too, the ice pieces are therefore not produced according to demand. Consequently, it is not possible to adjust the production of ice pieces in a flexible way.